


What's in a Name?

by dawninthemtn



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Ben is incredibly awkward, F/M, Fluff, HEA, In which the author rags on her own profession, and we love him for it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-01
Updated: 2020-06-01
Packaged: 2021-03-02 19:40:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,071
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24482164
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dawninthemtn/pseuds/dawninthemtn
Summary: Barista Ben desperately wants to ask out the cute customer who frequents his cafe. The problem is, they're stuck in a game of nicknames and he has no idea what her real name is.
Relationships: Kylo Ren/Rey, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 94
Kudos: 449





	What's in a Name?

**Author's Note:**

  * For [JustDyadThings](https://archiveofourown.org/users/JustDyadThings/gifts).



> For F, for our discord prompt exchange - Her original prompt was, "Ben is a barista at a coffee shop Rey frequents. Rey falls asleep in a deep corner booth one night, tired from studying, and Ben's the one who finds her."
> 
> I hope you enjoy my spin on it!

It started with a sneeze.

Some random customer, near the back of the line, made a sound so loud, so inhuman, that a baby started crying.

Then he sneezed again, and several people winced.

He wound up, holding his hands near his nose in anticipation of another sneeze, and the room seemed to hold its breath. He took a few huffing breaths, and sneezed again, somehow louder than the first two.

“Sorry,” the man said, now that the entire cafe’s attention was on him. He rubbed his extra-large nose and watery eyes. “Seasonal allergies.”

His sneezing spell apparently over, the cafe returned to a soft titter of people chuckling off the incident and returning to their own business.

“That,” muttered a voice in front of Ben, “is a man who needs to move to the middle of a barren desert.”

Ben chuckled under his breath, before his eyes found the owner of the voice . She was standing at his counter, ready to order coffee now that it was possible.

“It’s bloody  _ January _ ,” she continued to whisper, now that Ben was looking her way. She had a cute British accent to go with her cute, well, everything. She leaned in slightly to add, “If that’s what winter does to him, I don’t want to be in the same city as him come April.”

Ben’s eyes flickered past the girl to the customers behind her in line, who were all engaged in conversation or staring at their phones before he replied softly, “Should I spike his drink with Zyrtec?”

That earned him a wide, earnest smile, and Ben felt a rush of pride that his Bad Joke had elicited such a reaction from such a cute girl.

Ben didn’t usually talk to his customers. He was maybe the world’s least friendly barista, far more interested in getting to the end of each four-hour shift as quickly as possible than fostering any relationships or remembering any names or orders. He didn’t mean to be unfriendly, but he hated small talk and even fleeting moments of eye contact with strangers made him uncomfortable.

“That could get you fired,” said the girl. “How about I do it for you?” She winked. “I’ll be the Bonnie to your Clyde.”

It was easy to forget he had a job to do, as lost as he got in the girl’s shining eyes and conspiratorial expression, but in the corner of his perspective he noticed the customer behind her look up impatiently from his phone.

Ben straightened, nervously laughing and wiping his hands on his apron. “Right,” he said. “Uh, what can I get for you?”

She gave a quick look to the long line behind her and spoke quickly. “Can I get a 16 caramel macchiato?” She handed him a five dollar bill, and put the change Ben gave her in the tip jar.

They both jumped when the man sneezed again.

“Remember my offer,” she said, tipping her head back towards the offender.

Ben laughed and hurried to prepare her order, still flustered by her continued smile. He picked up a cup to write her name before he realized that he had forgotten to ask. She had already stepped out of the line, tapping away at her phone.

Once her order was ready, he couldn’t call out her name, so he stepped out from behind the counter to hand it to her.

She looked at the cup in confusion for half a second, before her face broke into another giant grin.

On her cup, in the best handwriting he could manage with a Sharpie on a rounded surface, he’d written, “ _ Bonnie. _ ”

\--

  
  


The following Saturday, the cafe was unusually and blissfully empty. The other baristas bemoaned the lack of tips, but Ben was grateful for the reprieve from customer interaction. He leaned against the counter, his mind wandering to a book he needed to analyze for a term paper. He was jotting down some ideas on a notepad when he heard the front door swing open.

His disappointment at having a customer quickly abated when they came into view. The girl from the week before marched up to the counter and flashed him a smile.

“Hi Clyde,” she said.

“Hey Bonnie,” he replied, feeling proud that she remembered.

“Pretty empty in here today,” she remarked, looking around. “Did the sneezing man scare everyone away for good?”

“It would appear so. Word travels fast.”

“I don’t think it needed to,” she said. “They probably heard him sneezing on the other side of campus.”

She didn’t appear to be in a hurry to order, a fact that he wasn’t going to let go to waste. Her mention of campus and the Coruscant University sweatshirt she wore provided him with a segue.

“Do you go to CU?” he asked.

“Yeah, I’m a junior. Engineering. You?”

He nodded. “This is my last semester. I’m hoping to hear back from grad programs soon.” She gave him an encouraging smile, and he quickly turned the tables back to her before she could ask more. “So, engineering? What do you hope to do?”

“I like tinkering and building. When I was a kid, I’d take apart VCRs or speakers or whatever. I always wanted to be an inventor. If I can find anything that makes me feel like that, that’s what I want. The robotics lab is my favorite place to be.”

“That’s a whole world on campus I know nothing about,” he admitted. “I’ve barely left the humanities building in four years. I’m an English major.”

“Oh.” She wrinkled her nose adorably. “I hate writing.”

“I guess we found our places, then.” The front door of the shop noisily banged open as a sizable crew of hungover looking students came in. 

The girl looked back at them. “I guess I better get on with it, then.” She made her order, paid with a few rumbled dollar bills, and found a table far from the crowd..

As Ben prepared her coffee, he realized that he had again forgotten to ask her name. 

It didn’t end up being a bad thing, though, when he was rewarded with another large smile when she read what he had written on her cup.

_ Thomas Edison _

\--

For the six semesters that Ben had been a reluctant barista, he had dreaded Saturday mornings. Now, however, he eagerly looked forward to them. To seeing Her.

She reliably came every week, and he made sure he’d be at the register when she did.

After two months, he still didn’t know her name.

It was too late to ask. 

She called him Ben, his name tag making that easy for her.

He called her all sorts of things.

When she told him she was a waitress, he gave her a cup that said  _ Keri Russell. _

When he clumsily knocked over a bag of coffee beans and she jokingly threatened to call the manager, he wrote  _ Karen. _

Every week was something different, and every cup made her smile, like she was waiting for the next ridiculous nickname. Sometimes the names were born out of a lengthy chat if the shop was empty enough, and sometimes only a tiny exchange.

He lived in fear of a conversation so short he wouldn’t be able to think of anything.

So far, that hadn’t happened. She seemed keen to talk to him, to steal any bits of conversation she could, which separated her from most women.

She was the best part of his day. 

_ No _ .

She was the best part of his week.

More and more, he began to dream of other names that he could write on her cup. One day, she wore a bright yellow cardigan and two braids. He had nearly summoned the courage to call her  _ Sunshine _ , but had chickened out and written  _ Pippi Longstockings  _ instead _. _

He wanted to write  _ Sweetheart  _ on her cup _. _ He wanted to call her “Sweetheart” to her face. He wanted to hand her a cup that contained poetry, that asked her to dinner, gave her his number, told her how she occupied his thoughts so often he could barely scrape through his schoolwork.

He wanted to make her coffee at his apartment, in one of his own mugs, curled up cozily on a Sunday morning, far away from prying eyes.

Mostly, he wanted to know her name.

  
  


\--

  
  


“Hey Ben.” She came to the counter one Saturday morning looking unusually tired. 

“Hey,” he said. She covered a huge yawn, prompting him to ask, “Late night?”

“Yeah.” She gave a wry chuckle. “I’m not cut out for the college lifestyle, never have been. If I had my way, I’d go to bed at nine every night. I went to a late movie after my shift last night with someone from work.”

“Oh yeah?” Ben tried to tamp down the jealousy that rose over who “someone” might be. “What did you see?”

“ _ Canary _ . It was this action film about a police informant. I didn’t pick it.”

“How was it?”

“Eh.” She wrinkled her nose. “Very forgettable. 6.5 out of ten.”

He laughed. “That’s a very specific score.”

“It’s the most insulting score I can think of.”

“Wouldn’t a zero or a one be worse?”

“No,” she said emphatically. “That would imply that it was so bad, it was memorably bad. I might even watch a truly terrible movie more than once, for kicks. But I won’t remember last night’s movie tomorrow. Indifference is way worse than hatred.”

“All right, I can see that. Sorry you’re tired over a mediocre film.”

“That’s where you come in,” she said, eyeing the menu. “I’m going to need something extra strong today.”

After he took her order and wrote  _ Roger Ebert  _ on her cup, his manager told him he could take his break. Ben was thrilled with the timing. Maybe he’d be able to sit with the girl and chat for a few minutes.

However, he made the mistake of looking at his phone.

Text from Mom:  **I’m sure you’re at work, but call back as soon as you can. It’s urgent.**

Ben’s stomach lurched. His dad had had a heart attack the year before, and Ben always worried that it would happen again. It wasn’t like his stubborn father had actually made any lifestyle changes since that time.

Ben slipped into the alley space beside the cafe and dialed his mom.

Five minutes later, he hung up, furious.

He resisted the urge to punch the red brick wall, having broken his hand in high school in a fit of rage, but the desire to destroy something, anything, was overwhelming. 

He settled on smacking off a few empty beer cans that someone had left sitting on top of a garbage can. They echoed loudly through the alleyway, which was at least partially satisfying.

“Uh, hey Ben,” he heard a voice call out from the street. He turned with dread to find the girl staring at him, cup in hand. She looked concerned. “You okay?”

“I, um,” he stuttered, embarrassed. He stared down at the beer cans. “It makes me so mad when people don’t recycle.”

She gave him a wry smile. “So why are you taking it out on the cans?”

“Sins of the father.”

She laughed, before stepping into the alley and laying a gentle hand on his elbow. “I just, well, I have to admit I heard you upset with someone on the phone. I swear I only heard the very end,” she added quickly. “I want you to know that we can talk. If you want. If you need someone to talk to.”

His shoulders slumped. “It was my mom,” he said. “Apparently, she’s an old friend of the law school dean. He’s willing to accept a late application for the fall if I take the upcoming LSAT.” He gritted his teeth. “Lucky me.”

“But you don’t want to go to law school?”

“No, I don’t.” He ran his hand through his hair. “I’ve already been accepted into two Master’s programs in English. I want to get my doctorate and be a professor.”

“That’s great, Ben.”

“It’s not great,” he said. “Not to my mother. You’re lucky. I’m sure your parents are thrilled with your major.”

“My parents are dead, actually.”

Ben buried his head in his hands and slid down the wall, sinking to the ground and feeling more wretched than he had before.

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay,” she said. “Maybe in 1600 you would have been insensitive, but in this day and age I think you’re safe to assume they’re alive.”

Ben had a feeling that wasn’t the first time she’d made that joke.

“I’m still sorry.” 

She sat beside him on the dirty ground. “Why does your mom want you to go to law school?”

“She thinks I won’t make enough in academia,” he said. “She’s a lawyer. Her dad was a lawyer, too. It’s his money funding my education, and that gives her fuel. She says it’s what he would have wanted. He died before I was born, but I like to think that he would have wanted me to be happy.”

“I’m sure that’s true.”

“My mom is miserable in her career. All of her colleagues are. That’s the only reason any lawyer ever encourages anyone to go to law school, you know. Misery loves company.” 

She laid a hand on his leg. “It’s probably that it’s been a reliable and lucrative career for her and she wants you to have that, too.”

Ben crumpled again. “I know that. But I’m tired of her pushing this. Sometimes I feel like it will never end. She’ll wheel herself into my retirement party and tell me when the next LSAT is coming up.”

“That’s a tad dramatic,” she said, smiling. “If she’s there, it will be because she’s proud of your long and impressive academic career. And hey.” She nudged him in the shoulder. “You don’t strike me as a party person, anyway.” 

“True.”

“You should do what you love.”

“My mom says that’s what young people say until they realize that they have no money and it’s too late to change paths.”

“Well, at that point it won’t be her problem anyway, will it?” she said brightly. “Besides, you have a real career plan. It’s not like you’re giving up school to try to be a Youtube star or something.”

He laughed at that. “I probably overreacted, but when she gets like that, it makes me so mad, I-”

“Beat up on innocent beer cans?”

He huffed. “Yeah.”

“I think it sounds like you’re on a great path, Ben,” she said emphatically. “Your mom should be proud. And if she’s not, that is her problem. You should be proud of yourself.”

Ben’s throat was thick. “Thank you- ” He paused, upset that he didn’t have anything to call her. “Just, thank you.”

—

  
  


“Why don’t you grow a pair and ask her out?” Ben’s roommate Hux asked impatiently one night. 

Ben lay collapsed on the couch, feeling beaten by his crush.

“I can’t ask her out,” said Ben pathetically. “I don’t even know her name. We’ve been talking for months. It’s way too late to ask.”

“There’s got to be a way to figure it out.”

“I’ve tried everything.” 

“Isn’t it on her credit card?”

“She only pays with cash. She’s a waitress on Friday nights. She buys coffee with her tips.”

“Well, there’s something,” said Hux. “Go to her work and read her name tag, dummy.”

Ben looked at him darkly. “I did that. She didn’t wear one. And her name wasn’t on the receipt or anything. She wrote a nickname on my to-go box, though. _Lord_ _Byron_. I think it was because I was writing the whole time.”

“Ooh, sexy,” said Hux. 

“She was only playing along with our game.”

“How about this? Ask her for her number, and when you put it in your phone, ask ‘how do you spell your name?’”

“But what if it’s something straightforward like Emily and I’ll look like an idiot?”

“That’s easy.” Hux waved his hand. “Make a self-deprecating joke about how you’re a barista and are therefore incapable of spelling even the simplest of names.”

Nodding, Ben said, “Okay, maybe I can do that. But what if I creep her out by getting her number?”

Hux groaned. “You are hopeless. Just ask her out, name or not. Maybe you’ll figure it out as the date goes on.”

“That’s risky.”

“It won’t last forever. If you guys end up getting married, the officiant at your wedding will say her full name, and then you’ll know.”

“Very funny,” said Ben, rolling his eyes. “Can you get one of your Saturday shifts off so you can come hang out until she comes in? Then you could introduce yourself.”

“No, but there’s your answer right there. Have you had one of the other baristas take her order? There’d be no reason for them not to ask her name.”

“Oh.” It was so obvious, he couldn’t believe he’d never considered it. “I guess I’ve never wanted to miss the chance to talk to her.”

“I think you’d more than make up for that lost time on an actual date.”

Inwardly admitting that Hux was right, Ben resolved to enact his plan the next time she came in. He’d have a coworker get her name, and then he’d intercept her as she was leaving.

He could do it. He could be brave.

\--

  
  


On Thursday night, two days before Operation Ask Her Out, Ben was working late. Finals were around the corner, and the shop was filled with zombie-like students staring blankly at their laptops and textbooks..

About an hour before closing,  _ she  _ came in.

Having not expected to see her, Ben hadn’t prepared to have a coworker take her order. Wedge was off taking his break anyway, flirting with a student at a table in the back.

“I’ve never seen you here at night,” said Ben, once she had approached his register.

“I know,” she said. “But I’ve got a paper due at midnight and my apartment’s internet keeps crapping out on me.”

“I won’t keep you then.” He pulled out a cup and Sharpie. “The usual?” 

She nodded and handed him her usual crumpled cash before quickly taking her seat and unpacking her backpack. Ben brought her her coffee ( _ Night Owl _ ) and settled back behind the counter, content to spend the remainder of his shift observing her. Maybe he was as creepy as he feared, but he loved watching her work. The way she nibbled on her pencil when she was thinking hard, the way she always wrote sloppily on her notebook before turning to her computer.

A little bit before midnight, Ben and Wedge shuffled out customers. The girl gave him a pleading look and held up one finger, looking anxiously at the clock. Ben nodded, and she returned to her frantic typing.

When the last group of students left, Ben looked for her. Maybe he could convince her to wait for him to finish closing so he could give her a ride. As far as he knew, she didn’t have a car.

Ben had finished wiping tables when he noticed that the sounds of her typing had stopped. She was slumped over her textbook, and as he came closer, he realized that she was fast asleep.

He got Wedge’s attention, who shrugged at him from where he was cleaning the latte machine.

“Uh, hey,” Ben said lamely, softly rocking her shoulder. She didn’t stir, but he exposed a small spot of drool coming from her mouth. “Hey,” he tried a little louder, “it’s uh, we’re closing.”

She didn’t respond, so he leaned in as close as he dared, to make sure she was breathing. Forcing himself not to smell her shampoo, he managed to deduce that she was alive.

He pulled back and scanned the scene.

All of her schoolwork was spread across the table. 

Ben tried to convince himself that the idea that came to his mind was a terrible one.

He looked at Wedge, who was counting the register and not looking his way.

Maybe one tiny peek wouldn’t hurt. He wouldn’t actually read anything. 

There was a notebook lying open next to her laptop. As carefully as he could manage, Ben flipped through it. It was filled with random thoughts and equations, but nothing resembling a name at the top of any of the pages.

He opened the front cover of one of her textbooks, the one she was not currently using as a pillow. There was a name and number on the title page.  _ Matt Johnson. _ That wasn’t her, was it? Surely not. The book looked older, so he figured it was a previous owner.

Her laptop screen was black. He gently tapped the space bar, lighting up the screen, but whatever programs she had been using had been quit out of.

Finally, he tried her phone. Gingerly, he slid it from under one of her arms. It was password protected, but he tried to access her medical ID.

_ It’s only wise, _ he thought.  _ She could have diabetes or another serious illness. I’m just making sure she doesn’t need an ambulance. _

Her medical ID was empty. Mentally, he clucked at her oversight while also feeling disappointed. 

If he had been successful, he could have woken her up, driven her home, and asked her out by name.

“What are you doing?”

Ben nearly dropped the phone at the sound of her voice. Juggling it like the world’s worst clown, he finally got control and set it on the table like it was on fire.

“Umm…”

“Why were you looking at my phone?” Her brow was severely wrinkled, a manifestation of her tiredness, stress, anger, and confusion.

“I, um…”

She picked up her phone. “Why were you looking at my medical ID?”

Ben found his voice to defend himself. “I was making sure you were okay, that you didn’t have a serious medical condition. What if I had needed to call 911?”

“Do you always root through people’s stuff in emergency situations? I’d probably be dead by now, you know.” She sat up and shuffled some papers. Her eyes narrowed. “Were you going through my stuff?”

The look on her face was enough to make Ben collapse into a chair in humiliation. Disappointment burned through him. She’d never agree to a date now.

“I’m sorry,” he blurted miserably. “I wasn’t trying to spy, or creep, or anything. I was just trying to figure out your name.”

“My name?”

“Yes.” He nodded, eyes on the ground. “I wanted to ask you ou- to talk to you more, but I’ve known you so long now, and I didn’t even know your name. I was… I was too embarrassed to ask.”

“So that’s why you came up with all the nicknames?”

“I wrote the nicknames because I wanted to make you smile,” he admitted, before adding quickly, “but also because I didn’t know your name.”

She stared at him, wide-eyed, before she burst out laughing. She laughed so hard that Ben’s feeling of self-consciousness swelled to an unbearable size, but as she wiped away her tears of mirth, he was relieved to see that her smile seemed joyful, and not mocking.

“Oh Ben,” she said after an excruciatingly long time of this, “oh Ben.” She shook her head. “You,” she said, meeting his eyes, “are the cutest giant scary man I have ever met.”

He chuckled awkwardly and rubbed his neck, with no idea how to respond.

She tore a piece of notebook paper.

“My name is Rey.” She wrote her name and her number on the paper and slid it to him. “And I would love to go out with you, Ben.” She laughed again,shaking her head, and Ben’s heart fluttered. “I thought you’d never ask.”

  
  


\--

  
  


Ben eventually got to try out all the pet names and endearments he had long fantasized about calling Rey. He wrote them on her coffee cups at the cafe in the evenings, and whispered them in her ear as he handed her steaming mugs in the morning. Over the years, he got to refer to her with a variety of titles, my girlfriend, my fiance, my wife, Mommy…

But the sweetest name of all was the one that never changed, the name he called her again and again, hundreds, thousands, millions of times.

_ Rey. _

His beautiful, perfect Rey.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!


End file.
